


Happy

by bookwyrmling



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Coming Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-27
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-12-20 08:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11916738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookwyrmling/pseuds/bookwyrmling
Summary: “So did you get to say goodbye?” Bob asks when Jack finally rejoins them – windswept and with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.





	Happy

**Author's Note:**

> Crossposted from Tumblr. Check Please and its characters belong to Ngozi.

“So did you get to say goodbye?” Bob asks when Jack finally rejoins them – windswept and with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes.

“Oh…yeah,” Jack nods, pulling out his phone and shooting off a text.

Bob and Alicia raise eyebrows at each other before Alicia tries.  “Who did you say goodbye to?” she asks carefully, knowing how Jack has fought back about his parents prying into his life when he’s not ready to share.

Jack looks up from his phone with confused wide eyes before shrugging.  “Oh, just remembered I had something to say to Bittle is all,” he replied as his eyes drifted back to his phone as it buzzed once in his hands.

Bob and Alicia’s eyebrows jump even higher as they look at each other this time and they make a few faces and hand gestures at each other before Bob asks, “You mean Eric Bittle?  Your liney?”

“Yeah, Dad, you met him three times already,” Jack points out with an annoyed sigh as he taps out yet another text.  His phone buzzes almost immediately and, when he reads it, Jack’s smile lights up to where his parents haven’t seen it in years and, this time, when they look at each other, it’s with smiles on their faces and tears in their eyes.

George watches on in silence, but smiles to herself as she thinks about the coming year.  She needs to put herself in a position where Jack knows he’ll be able to come to her in the future.

**8 Months Later**

Alicia and Bob are concerned, at first, when Jack asks for the video chat and the way Jack is nervously rubbing his hands against his sweats when they answer the call doesn’t help much, but then there’s a sound off-screen and Jack looks up and the tension in his shoulders and eyes melts off and he smiles and watches as Eric Bittle walks over to join him on the couch, the two pressed to each other’s sides all the way up.

Alicia and Bob smile.

“Maman, Papa, I have something I want to tell you,” Jack begins nervously, speaking into his lap, as he’s always tended to do when the pressure of what he wants to say becomes to much.

“Are the two of you engaged?”

Bob frowns and taps at the screen a couple seconds of silence and stillness after Alicia asks her question.  “Hello?  Did we lose connection or freeze?” he asks and Bittle and Jack look at them like deer caught in headlights.

“W-Why would you think I’m engaged?” Jack asks nervously and squeezes Bittle’s hand not quite out of sight of the camera.

“Well, you better not have gotten married without inviting us down, that’s for sure,” Alicia replies.

“N-non! Maman, I don’t know why you’d–” Jack begins before shaking his head and huffing and saying, “I’m dating Bitty,” to his lap once more and this time it’s Alicia and Bob who are silent for long enough to draw concerned glances from their son and his boyfriend.

“I mean, you ask about Bitty so much, Maman,” Jack explains, “and I was hoping to talk to you about some stuff, Papa, so I just thought–”

And then Bob snorted a laugh before immediately stuffing it back inside and Alicia jumped in to calm her son down.

“Oh, honey, we just…we already knew?”

“You…knew?”  Jack and Bitty open wide eyes at each other before sending panicked glances their way.  “H-how?  We were trying to keep it a secret–”

Alicia bites her lip and thinks about that moment after graduation when Jack came back from saying goodbye.  Bob clears his throat and remembers the kitchen appliances Jack had made them buy when they moved him into his new apartment in Providence.  Alicia scratches her hand and remembers visiting for his home-opener to seeing post-its on his fridge and a small pair of shorts underneath the sofa.  Bob scratches his ankle and thinks of the baked goods Jack had been so excited to share with them during.

“You just…seemed so happy,” Alicia finally said with a smile and Bob nodded his head while keeping his mouth firmly shut.  Thank the Lord there was at least one actress in this family.


End file.
